Monday, 1 July 2013

As you'll know from previous posts, I'm planning a trip to the Isle of Juralater on this summer. Obviously the wanderlust from my America trip hasn't worn off yet!

The real attraction is the island is the sense of self-reliance and independence and for me some of this is reflected in the decisions I'll make on what I want to eat and drink. I'm going to be (wild) camping for a good chunk of the trip so I'll need to be smart about how I intend to re-fuel.

Of course, this is all a pretext for me to obsess over which Trangia stove to take with me: my Trangia 27-6 UL or my mini-stove. For the uninitiated, the Trangia is a Matryoshka-doll-esque cooking system with the pans, heating unit and other elements all packing down into one neat unit. You can see a series of pictures here. I love the simplicity and pretty-much unbreakable nature of the system and the smell of burning methylated spirits immediately makes me think of the outdoors. On balance, depending on the rest of my packing, I'm probably going to take the larger system but we'll see!

There is only one shop on the island - Jura Stores - which since my last visit nearly ten years looks like it's changed from a fairly pedestrian outpost of Spar into a community owned facilitity: some background on this here. This kind of community ownership model is becoming increasingly popular of course as groups of local residents fight to preserve local pubs, shops and post offices. The range of food is very good given the remote location but it won't have everything thing I need so am intending to take some staple ingredients with me.

I've been consulting a couple of good books: The Trailside Cookbook and Moveable Feasts both of which despite an over-reliance on powdered egg (bleugh) have given me enough ideas and possibilities that I need to explore of the next few weeks. I've also got a couple of pre-made meals as emergency supplies - as you can see from the photo above, they're not exactly appetising in either appearance or taste...